Claiming a Tradition Italian American Women Writers

Mary Jo Bona reconstructs the literary history and examines the narrative techniques of eight Italian American women's novels from 1940 to the present. Largely neglected until recently, these women's family narratives compel a reconsideration of what it means to be a woman and an ethnic in America. Bona discusses the novels in pairs according to their focus on Italian American life. She first examines the traditions ofitalianita(a flavor of things Italian) that inform and enhance works of fiction. The novelists in that tradition were Mari Tomasi (Like Lesser Gods, 1949) and Marion Benasutti (No Steady Job for Papa, 1966). Bona then turns to later novels that highlight the Italian American belief in the family's honor and reputation. Conflicts between generations, specifically between autocratic fathers and their children, are central to Octavia Waldo's 1961A Cup of the Sunand Josephine Gattuso Hendin's 1988The Right Thing to Do. Even when writers choose to steer away from the familial focus, Bona notes, their developmental narratives trace the reintegration of characters suffering from a crisis of cultural identity. Relating the characters' struggles to their relationship to the family, Bona examines Diana Cavallo's 1961A Bridge of Leavesand Dorothy Bryant's 1978Miss Giardino. Bona then discusses two innovative novelsHelen Barolini's 1979Umbertinaand Tina De Rosa's 1980Paper Fishboth of which feature a granddaughter who invokes her grandmother, a godparent figure. Through Barolini's feminist and De Rosa's modernist perspectives, both novels present a young girl developing artistically. Closing with a discussion of the contemporary terrain Italian American women traverse, Bona examines such topics as sexual identity when it meets cultural identity and the inclusion ofitalianitawhen Italian American identity is not central to the story. Italian American women writers, she concludes, continue in the 1980s and 1990s to focus on the interplay between cultural identity and women's development.Bona, Mary J. is the author of 'Claiming a Tradition Italian American Women Writers' with ISBN 9780809322589 and ISBN 0809322587.